A former Hebridean charity campaigner, guilty of a catalogue of historic abuse, has had his jail term doubled. Christopher Baker, 77, who was once the director of the Mull and Iona Community Trust, was caged in November last year.
Baker served on the MICT between 1998 and 2019 and was charged with abusing youngsters between 1986 and 2000. He was jailed for two years after a jury found him guilty.
But prosecutors appealed the sentence as unduly lenient and he returned to the dock this month. The Sheriff Appeal Court in Edinburgh quashed the sentence, imposing a four-year jail term instead.
Baker had laughed and joked with a friend in the gallery at Dumbarton Sheriff Court in November, just minutes before entering the dock. He was accused of “abusing a position of trust, responsibility and power” to “physically, sexually, mentally and emotionally” abuse youngsters.
As he was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years in November, Sheriff Maxwell Hendry said: “They were terrified of you and of what might happen next. This was traumatic, life-changing and there’s possible lifelong consequences.”
Baker moved to the Inner Hebrides from the south of England in 1972 and began to abuse the first girl when she was just two, and the second from the age of four. He terrorised them for a decade, until the younger girl reached the age of 12, but denied he’s done anything wrong. He forced both victims to give evidence against him at a trial in September.
The court heard how he repeatedly abused the first girl at two hotels and in a country house. He regularly attacked the second girl at another property. The Appeal Court judges said in selecting a sentence of two years in jail, the sheriff had “underestimated the seriousness” of the offences.
Discussing the first victim, they explained: “The respondent’s culpability was very high. His sexual abuse of the victim was planned and deliberate. He was a mature adult at the time he committed the offence. The extent of the harm caused to the victim was enormous. The offending against her was sustained and repeated.
“As she made clear in her victim statement, the psychological impact on her was immense; it has caused her great suffering and distress throughout her life to date.”
Baker was also Mull Little Theatre director for more than 10 years, a board member of Mull Car Cub, and director and founder member of North West Mull Community Woodland Company.
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